Newman Ivey White Professor of Literature at Duke University, V.Y. Mudimbe received his Doctorat en Philosophie et Lettres from the University of Louvain in 1970. In 1997 he became Doctor Honoris Causa at University of Paris VII. Before coming to Duke, he taught at the Universities of Louvain, Paris-Nanterre, Zaire, Stanford University, and at Haverford College. He has published some seventy articles, three collections of poetry, four novels, and several books in applied linguistics, philosophy, and social science. His recent publications include: L'Odeur Du Père (1982), The Invention of Africa (1988), Parables and Fables (1991), The Idea of Africa (1994), and Tales of Faith (1997). He is editor of The Surreptitious Speech (1992), Nations, Identities, Cultures (1997), Diaspora and Immigration (1999), and editor of a forthcoming encyclopedia of African religions and philosophy. He is also former General Secretary of SAPINA (the Society for African Philosophy in North America) and co-editor with Robert Bates and Jean O'Barr of Africa and the Disciplines (1993).

            V.Y. Mudimbe is also Membre Correspondant de l’Académie Royale des Sciencs d’Outre Mer, Brussels; a life Member of la Société américaine de philosophie de langue française; as well as a member of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, and of the World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning. His interests are in phenomenology and structuralism, with a focus on the logic of mythical narratives and the practice of language. He served also as Chairman of the Board of African Philosophy, and he is the Chairman of the International African Institute, SOAS, University of London. He regularly teaches on ancient Greek geography, French phenomenology, and African themes.